Oops I see I cross posted! My last post is referring to post #18 from Susan.

Susan could you clarify this? One does see these things, so are you saying that that makes spirituality innate? I would say that attraction to mystery is innate and possibly part of the process of "pattern recognition" or "anticipations," and that for some people that attraction can motivate them toward attentiveness to certain patterns. But to me, "spirituality" is quite a broad and somewhat vague term and that makes it difficult for me to wrap my head around.

As an aside, there's a science fiction book that takes a completely opposite look at immortals: The Boat of a Million Years, by Poul Anderson. It follows the lives of a few people who, for some unexplained reason, were born immortal. This only became evident to them as they stopped aging and outlived their peers, their children, etc. The drama of the book comes from how they have to interact with society and, eventually, with each other. They're pretty much the opposite of PD1, which makes it an interesting read and an obtuse way to meditate on the Epicurean gods. Also a tonic when thinking about the gods reaches a point of brain freeze!

To me it's important when considering the gods to keep anticipations in mind.

Going a little freeform here.... Consider the anticipations as "pattern recognition." The obvious implication of this is recognizing patterns, but the less obvious (and here I'm speculating ) implication is the urge to solving mysteries, which at some level is recognizing patterns. Nature and life are full of mystery (which of course we should celebrate), and to me it is the urge to solving mysteries of nature which is the true anticipation of the gods. That seems to be the main common denominator between polytheistic, monotheistic, animistic, human, "primitive" and "advanced" conceptions of gods. To me, the idea that the gods speak Greek or are individuals or that there is one all-powerful God, when seen as an anticipation, is evidence of the effect of cultural norms on pattern recognition which in turn had an effect on Epicurus' ideas of the gods. Visions of the gods can come from exposure to the myths just as visions of the dead can come from memories of the living.

It's also of great use when considering the anticipations to keep the gods in mind.

For some reason 8 followed by a ) shows up as . Is there a ghost in the machine?

1) Follow pleasure.

2) To follow pleasure is to follow the faculties.

3) Knowledge comes through three faculties: senses, pattern recognition, and feelings of pleasure and pain.

4) Balance the three faculties.

5) Regard reason with suspicion if it is not grounded in the faculties.

6) Sharpen the senses, increase the input.

7) Maximize the quantity of input.

Scrutinize all input.

9) Clarity of input improves overall function.

10) Pattern recognition is non-conscious cognition.

11) Pattern recognition is a bridge from input to reaction.

12) Open to your intuition.

13) Observe the guidance of your pleasures and pains.

14) Every pleasure is good, but not every desire: don't confuse the impulse with the faculty.

15) Understand the motivation and consequences of all desires.

16) Distinguish between utility and vanity.

17) Every pleasure is good, but not always chosen.

18) Every pain is bad, but not always avoided.

19) The limit of pleasure is the absence of pain, but pursuing a negative will not lead to a positive.

20) Pain is a faculty, experience it in its immediate fullness.

21) Reflect on your fear, grief and hate, and how they prevent reaching the goal.

22) Many pains are more than balanced by pleasure over time.

23) Maintain attention to present experience and perception.

24) Understand the implications of science.

25) All there is is composed of matter-energy and void, as described by physics.

26) The extent of the void is infinite.

27) The quantity of matter-energy is infinite.

28) Matter-energy is uncreatable and indestructible.

29) All there is is infinite in time.

30) Solid bodies are either compounds of matter-energy particles or simple matter-energy particles.

31) Compound bodies have emergent properties described by physics.

32) Life exists throughout the universe.

33) Evolution takes patience.

34) Contemplate how you came to be born at this time, in this corner of the universe.

35) The faculties are emergent properties of living matter.

36) Free will is an emergent property of living matter.

37) There is nothing supernatural, no ideal realm, no “higher truth”.

38) God will not punish you or save you.

39) The soul is corporeal and begins and ends with the body.

40) In this I live, and move, and have my being.

41) Regularly experience awe.

42) Live right, don't fear death, prepare to die.

43) Living pleasurably requires living with prudence and virtue, and vice versa.

44) At all critical times connect your actions to the natural goal of life.

45) Success is abiding pleasure, happiness, contentment, peace.

46) The goal is not neutral.

47) Find pleasure in the journey.

48) There is pleasure in self-sufficiency, safety and friendship.

49) Periodically bask in joy.

50) "Truth" and "Justice" arise from pattern recognition and are not absolutes.

51) Justice is a covenant.

52) Verification and lack of evidence to the contrary establishes truth, and vice versa.

53) Carve out time for a hobby.

54) Young or old, there’s no time like the present.

55) Life is the greatest good: practice gratitude.

As has come up in another thread, here is my list of pleasure slogans. This is most definitely a work in progress!!!

The idea was inspired by the form, but not the content, of the Tibetan Buddhist “lojong slogans.” This is intended as both a learning tool and a practice tool.

The slogans should be such that studying them in order would provide a fairly complete introduction to EP

To do this, the slogans would need to be accompanied by relevant cites from the texts, as well as perhaps some commentary or questions to serve as an additional guide.

As a practice tool, I’m finding that for me they’re best used by randomly picking one and “living with it” for a day, a few days, or as long as the slogan seems relevant. I’ve just been thinking about the chosen slogan as it pops into my head throughout the day. Other, possibly better options are to track down relevant texts (which would be valuable but I just can’t seem to put my mind to it) or, if one enjoys journaling, to write one’s thoughts about the chosen slogan.

Regarding this particular list, all of the slogans are intentionally short, in modern English and most of them are not taken directly from the texts. They are divided between “theory” and “practice.” They’re probably a can of worms in that many of them make sense to me, but possibly not to anybody else. Having said that, I think that having an obscure one now and then stimulates a bit more thought and provides a new way of looking at an idea; at least that works for me. Also certain ones may make no sense at one point but be very useful at another.

I’ve no idea how best to discuss these, which is part of the reason I haven’t broached them earlier. So to open a Pandora’s box, here they are:

I mentioned it in passing a while back. It has lots of possibilities but also is a can of worms; I'll post it in a day or two and we'll see where it goes!

I guess I need to get to work then; it might take a couple of days....

This topic of practices and slogans seems to come up fairly regularly.... For some time now I've been compiling a list of "Epicurean pleasure slogans" to delineate the philosophy and have 50+ at this point. I haven't posted them as they'd need a LOT of work to really be legit, but maybe I'll clean up what I've got and post them sometime soon if that would be of some value.

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So, Epicurus says it's alright to use reason, right? We shouldn't rely on it to rationalize and come up with "ideal" absolutes, but we can use it to assimilate the information from our canonical senses.

Exactly! Reason is a tool, but it's not reliable without reference to the faculties of the canon.

In today's dysfunctional post-truth political realm, "facts" are all about feelings and that's part of the problem. Science, truth and actual facts have been systematically discredited, so that what's left is what you're told and how you feel about it. This is very Platonic and perhaps Aristotlean (I'm not very well versed in Aristotle): that's exactly what the forms, ideal realms and dialectic accomplish by disassociating from objective reality.

In that the Epicurean canon was a response to Plato, it's also a potential solution to today's purposive confusion. The senses, prolepses and feelings, and after these, reason, cover all the bases as to how we determine truth. They are all "corrective" of each other as in the bent oar problem. EP isn't a touchy-feely philosophy but one that uses all of the tools available to us to determine truth and how to live our lives.

At all critical times connect your actions to the natural goal of life.

This just seems appropriate at the moment.

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Moreover, when it comes to meteorological phenomena, one must believe that movements, turnings, eclipses, risings, settings, and related phenomena occur without any [god] helping out and ordaining or being about to ordain [things] and at the same time having complete blessedness and indestructibility; 77. for troubles and concerns and anger and gratitude are not consistent with blessedness, but these things involve weakness and fear and dependence on one’s neighbours. Nor again can they be in possession of blessedness if they [the heavenly bodies] are at the same time balls of fire and adopt these movements by deliberate choice; rather, we must preserve the complete solemnity implied in all the terms applied to such conceptions, so that we do not generate from these terms opinions inconsistent with their solemnity; otherwise, the inconsistency itself will produce the greatest disturbance in our souls. Hence, one must hold the opinion that it is owing to the original inclusion of these compounds in the generation of the cosmos that this regularly recurring cycle too is produced.

Here's the complete paragraph as translated by Inwood and Gerson.

Elayne, nothing wrong with thinking poetically LOL! I think I'll read this book, it looks right on point.

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For myself, I could even make a case for seeing divinity as desire, the drive for pleasure observed in all creatures with sufficient nervous systems to feel.

Elayne I'm with you on this and would enjoy hearing you make the case if you have the time or inclination. Much of my grasp comes intuitively; I always derive benefit from your science based approach.

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I would love to see more examples of art of any kind that people feel expresses their own lived Epicureanism. It feels very meaningful.

@Susan Hill this is the first that comes to mind in this context:

http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morph…&sysParentId=11

Great questions Don !

The generative force could easily and incorrectly be renamed the Generative Force (or simply The Force ). Obviously I'm still grappling with this, and there's probably a better word or phrase for what I'm trying to describe. It is a purely materialist process. It is how life originally evolved out of inert material, what causes plants to sprout and grow, flowers to bloom and to open and close with the cycle of the sun. It is energy from the sun providing fuel for life. It's whatever it is that takes place when an egg and a sperm develop into a baby. So yes, it has the characteristics of Venus as Lucretius was talking about, but I wouldn't personify it in that way. To a large extent it can be described scientifically, and I wouldn't attribute anything beyond the verifiable to it. "It" isn't even a good word as "it" is, I think more accurately, a series of processes. Where "it" can become an object of piety is exactly where "it" intersects with our individual pleasure, particularly in ways that lead us to experience reverence and awe.

I don't suggest adapting other religions' practices as a rule, for the reasons I mentioned previously. But I have attended Christian services to enjoy the architecture or the music and I can see early Epicureans doing something similar by attending the festivals. So I can understand on some level what was happening historically. But related to what you point out, Greek society was based on city-states and is entirely different from the mega-culture we now live in. I think we need to focus on "studying, understanding and basking in" pleasure and philosophy in like minded company, frankly I don't know how we could productively adapt contemporary communal religious practice of whatever persuasion to EP.

I just finished reading Significance of Worship and Prayer Among the Epicureans on the forum Filebase and it stirred up a flurry of thoughts which I’m putting down here. This is one attempt at distilling and resolving of some of the discussion from Reverence and Awe in Epicurean Philosophy; from the discussion I’m pretty sure several of us are going through a similar process!

Epicurus didn't do away with the gods but felt that he had reasoned out their true nature. Since his reasoning began with the conception of the gods current in his time, and he saw value in religion, he felt no need to reimagine the common worship although he did reinvent the mental content. What follows is me riffing on this idea….

To us living today, the gods of Epicurus’ time are but interesting historical myths. Our challenge then is to undergo the same process of reasoning as Epicurus, but with respect to the idea of the omnipotent god commonly worshipped today. The same critiques apply, but how can we apply EP to arrive at a useful model of piety?

Similarities between Greek and modern god(s): control the affairs of humans; can be influenced through worship, sacrifice, prayer, etc; control the natural world; know the thoughts of humans(?).

Differences: one omnipotent god today v a group of gods in Greece.

The similarities listed above for god(s) were eliminated by Epicurus, to be distilled down to indestructiblity and bliss. But he retained the Greek model of anthropomorphic gods, which has been for the most part discounted by our time. If I was to presume to discover the key idea of the contemporary god, it would be that it is a generative force. I think we would all agree that it isn’t anthropomorphic. So to this idea we would then apply the Epicurean canon, reasoning, and current experimentally verified science.

Epicurean, canonic pleasure, which equates to health and growth, is inherent in the generative force of life, and it is to that which we can connect. And furthermore, it’s indestructible and blissful. But we mustn't add to it anything that is unverifiable by accepted science. Epicurus wrote of his pleasure in studying natural philosophy; that same pleasure is available to us. Studying, understanding and basking in the pleasure inherent in life's generative force, I think, constitutes in broad terms a modern Epicurean "spiritual practice."

From this point Epicurus decided, in his typically radical fashion and for whatever reason, that attending the festivals, etc, was an appropriate form of worship for his "flock." This is as radical as are other parts of his philosophy, in fact it's so radical that I can't see myself following this advice. But if you distill the essence of a current religion to the worship of the generative force, it's easy to find the beauty and pleasure inherent in mainstream religious practice. Of course it's not so easy to ignore the corrosive aspects of religion, and perhaps more difficult still to actually attend a service as the early Epicureans did!

From what I've read there's some complexity regarding the prolepses in that Epicurus had a very empirical view of them, but later Epicureans expanded them to be more in line with how we understand them. There were arguments as to the place of active mental focusing versus prolepses: were these prolepses or did they occur separately?

It could be of interest to study these and other developments within the school, keeping in mind the developments in the societies in which the various generation of Epicureans lived and worked. There are some articles in https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/filebase/ that might information beyond DeWitt in this regard.